the great pacific garbage patch mitigation strategies
Answers
Explanation:
a few introductory lines explain what you understand by Great Pacific Garbage patch.
Discuss the following aspects in the answer:
What is Great Pacific Garbage? – The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), aka Pacific Trash Vortex, is an enormous collection of marine debris swirling in a gyre in the central North Pacific Ocean, well beyond recognized national boundaries. The patch extends over an imprecise area.
Explain the causal factors of it – 100% human. The plastics and debris in this region (and others) are all from human use, disposal, littering, dumping, etc. primary sources are improper waste disposal, management of trash, and manufacturing products.
Detail upon the impact of ecosystem – impact on the ocean ecosystem health and on marine animals, human health impacts, bioaccumulation etc.
What are the challenges in resolving it? What needs to be done? – need for coordinated environmental governance, dispute resolution mechanisms, need for adequate economic instruments, and adequate provisions for liability.
Conclude with significance of controlling the spread of the patch and curbing the rising menace of plastic pollution.
Answer:
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the north central Pacific Ocean. It is located about halfway between Hawaii and California. It’s the largest accumulation zone for ocean plastics on Earth.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch:
Twice the size of Texas, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches for hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean and is one of the most frightening examples of just how much human activity is violating the planet.
Marine debris and pollution consisting mostly of plastic trash is accumulating in oceans around the world.
The patch is characterized by exceptionally high relative pelagic concentrations of plastic, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.
Microplastics make up 94 percent of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch. But that only amounts to eight percent of the total tonnage.
As it turns out, of the 79,000 metric tons of plastic in the patch, most of it is abandoned fishing gear—not plastic bottles or packaging drawing headlines today.
The causal factors of GPGP are:
The cause of GPGP is entirely due to human beings.
Merchant ships expel cargo, sewage, used medical equipment, and other types of waste that contain plastic into the ocean.
The largest ocean-based source of plastic pollution is discarded fishing gear (including traps and nets).
Continental plastic litter such as Food Wrappers & Containers, Bottles and container caps, Plastic bags, Straws and stirrers etc. enters the ocean largely through storm-water runoff.
Micro plastics (particles of less than 5 mm) such as those used in scrubbers and cosmetics
Unlike POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) or chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), Plastic pollution has received little attention in terms of international agreements.